Buckets and Bucketts of Garlic

It's a crop fondly known as the stinking rose, and its industry in one region is flourishing.

The number of farmers growing the humble garlic in the NSW Upper Hunter Valley is on the rise.

And to celebrate the region hosted a garlic festival last month in Gloucester and Stroud.

The inaugural Bucketts of Garlic Festival, named after the local mountain range, featured farmers' markets, garlic themed dinners and a growing workshop.

Upper Myall garlic farmer Jocelyn Colleran ran the workshop with more than 20 people attending.

"You either decide that you want to go into it commercially, and you need to inform yourself and understand growing garlic, so that the risks involved are minimised," she said.

"But often people start growing garlic because they have an interest in it, and they just can't help themselves, so it grows into something larger."

Gloucester grower Brad Bowden says it's been a great few weeks celebrating everything about garlic.

"We have sold a reasonable amount of garlic, we're quite happy with it," he said.

"It's been a really steady flow, everyone's asked lots of questions, they're really interested to learn about all the different varieties of garlic.

"We have been growing five varieties over the past three years, we're going to change some varieties this year, we found a couple that don't store very well, don't like the humidity."

Peter Pfister grows garlic on the Craven Plateau and is the first in the region to plant, and also to harvest.

"We can grow a bit earlier because it's colder, so we say we grow at altitude with attitude," he said.

He says the festival was strongly supported by the public.

"It's been absolutely fantastic, and the best part of it is that we've met so many people who enjoy garlic but realise about the varieties available locally to them, and it's all organically grown," he said.

About a dozen types are grown in the region including French, Italian, Spanish and Japanese varieties.